


We Can Work it Out

by Diminua



Series: I'll Try Not to Sing Out of Key [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe (just one step sideways), M/M, Might be some spoilers but more likely simply won't make as much sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revisiting Castrovalva</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

‘Is there an explanation for the croquet lawn?’ The Master doesn’t look up from his book as the Doctor enters the console room, but there’s the warm embrace of the telepathic connection to acknowledge his presence, and the cool, considered voice to question his choice of garden fixtures. ‘I only remember a cricketing obsession, and of course a curious fondness for small jellies and long walks and excessively vivid clothing.’ 

‘Oh yes. Checked trousers and red coat with yellow lapels.’ The Doctor says with - apparently - affectionate nostalgia. ‘No, the croquet lawn was for Leela – she developed this sudden curiosity about Victorian England after we visited there. It was odd, really.’

‘Leela?’

‘The savage.’

‘They’re all savages Doctor. Narrow it down.’ 

The Master, now he’s abandoned his post as Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, has chosen a black shirt with mother of pearl buttons. He still wears Yana’s thin cravat, or something very similar, holding his collar high, but it’s unthinkable that he would bustle like Yana did, or mutter ‘good, good, good’ to himself while he worked. 

The Doctor thinks of John Smith, stammering and backing himself down a flight of stairs. Having to be picked up at the bottom. 

They aren’t all savages, but they are certainly very alien. He lets the subject go and takes the final few steps up to the console. 

‘Did you set any co-ordinates?’

‘I didn’t like to presume.’

‘Well then. Is there somewhere in particular you want to go? Because, if not, I was thinking perhaps the Berylium nexus. I know you weren’t exactly popular last time but you’ve got a whole new.. well, you, now. So if we keep our heads down..’

‘A thing you are entirely incapable of doing.’ 

‘..we should be ok. And you’re not any better at the keeping your head down thing by the way. How about the Bridge of Fllalfor. Or Castrovalva? Did you ever go back to see what happened to Castrovalva?’ 

‘I imagine it collapsed. My attempts at creating higher animals were ultimately rather disappointing, and it needed an intelligent mind to sustain the place.’ 

‘I thought it was brilliant.’ The Doctor sounds as hurt as if it were his own abilities that the Master was belittling. ‘With the recursion and the tunnel through the hill and the little golden lizards and everything.’

‘That’s not what you said at the time.’

‘Well at the time you had just erased a substantial chunk of the universe. I was probably a bit cross.’

‘Quietly seething, as I recall.’ The Master closes the book with a snap. ‘Very well then Doctor. Castrovalva.’

 

‘It was an accident.’ The Master protested, although he had not – would never have - accepted that excuse of himself. If it had been deliberate, if there had been some measure of insight into what he was tampering with he could have forgiven himself much more easily. Stupidity alone was inexcusable. 

‘And the humans you killed?’

‘It’s hardly the first time. Why is this suddenly bothering you now?’

‘Don’t be disingenuous. You know it’s always bothered me.’ 

‘They do kill each other you know.’

‘Some of them do, occasionally. Not routinely. And you could be better than them.’ 

‘Has it occurred to you I might not want to be better?’ _Consider yourself lucky I didn’t kill you_ , he thought, but the Doctor’s mind was locked tight, and he didn’t hear it. 

Instead he wandered back to the window and the mind-bending view of the small town. 

‘And this latest scheme?’

‘Scheme, Doctor? That’s a very distrusting turn of phrase.’ The Master said, as if he hadn’t just admitted he couldn’t see anything wrong with murder. 

‘You did just..’ 

‘As already explained, it was an accident. Don’t tell me you’ve never meddled with things best left alone.’

‘Not on that scale.’ The Doctor finally turned to meet the Master’s eyes, hands in his pockets. ‘You might say I never had your ambition.’

‘Regrets?’ 

‘Some.’ He could see the Doctor weighing them up in his mind. ‘Not as many as I think I should have.’ 

A vague answer, but that was probably as much as the Master could expect in response to such a vague question. If he had no wish to be more specific he would have to turn the subject.

‘I’m experimenting with thought computation.’ He explained. ‘Building matter from brainwaves.’ He joined the Doctor at the window to watch where Tegan and Adric were sitting outside, sunning themselves along with the small, silver lizards. ‘Naturally there’s a limit to what I can do with one mind and the limited time I’m willing to give to the project, but I’m reasonably pleased. I call it Castrovalva. I thought it sounded rather well.’ 

‘I see.’

‘You look surprised Doctor. Did you think I was entirely motivated by destructive impulses?’

‘No population?’

‘No, not as yet.’

‘But a history.’

‘It amused me. You’ll notice that the books are ancient but that they record the history of Castrovalva up to the present day. If I ever get as far as intelligent life it might be interesting to see if they notice.’

‘Is that also the reason for the recursion?’ The Doctor was becoming interested now. 

‘I like the recursion. It’s elegant.’ 

It had also required a considerable measure of control at a time when the Master had felt a need to prove to himself that he was capable of such control. That his alliance with chaos and disorder was a choice, not something he was fated for. 

That, however, was something the Doctor did not need to know.


	2. Chapter 2

The Master had deliberately chosen a planet and latitude with sharply differentiated seasons for his Castrovalva project, for no better reason than that he enjoyed the sense of time passing for every living thing around him as well as himself. 

Besides, it fitted with the seasonal hunt he’d included in his fake history for the intelligent beings that after two full years, he still hadn’t quite managed to sustain. The fault was quite definitely with the calculations, and undoubtedly resolvable, but he could already feel his interest in the place waning. It hadn’t been without use, both as a palate cleanser after the unpleasant business at Logopolis and as exercise in the application of machine-assisted psychokinesis, but there was little more to learn here. 

Were there an intelligent species the Master supposed they would have designated the current season as late summer or early autumn, the days still warm but shortening rapidly, and leaves turning colour and falling, blowing over the walls and drifting into piles at the centre of the empty town, crunching pleasantly underfoot.

The arrival of the Doctor’s Tardis, wheezing in it's accustomed way, scattered and sent the leaves spiralling once more, twisting into complex geometric patterns like miniature maps of the known universe. Or perhaps that rather overblown simile was prompted by the Master's satisfaction at the prospect of seeing the Doctor again. 

Alone too this time, closing the door carefully behind himself without so much as a final exhortation to 'not wander off'. The Master was mildly astonished.

‘No hangers-on Doctor?’ He asked.

‘Not at the moment. I dropped Tegan back at Heathrow Airport. It seemed best.’

There was quite clearly more to that story. The way the Doctor was standing, looking around himself rather than straight at the Master, his hands in his pockets, made it more than obvious something was wrong. 

Eventually, when the Doctor finally looked at him, he raised an eyebrow. It was prompt enough.

‘I lost Adric.’ The Doctor began, correcting himself almost before he’d finished. ‘No, I didn’t ‘lose’ him. Ridiculous phrase. Adric is dead.’ 

‘A pity. He was clever, academically speaking, and the rest might have come with time.’ 

‘Yes. He was terribly young.’

‘Well only the good die young, or so your Miss Grant told me once.’ 

The only answer the Doctor could find for that was a wan smile, but it was enough to bring the Master closer, almost within arm’s reach. 

‘So you came to see me. Why was that?’ 

‘Do you remember at the academy when they told us we’d be able to sense important events? Things we couldn’t change. Mustn’t change.’ 

‘I remember both you and I being somewhat sceptical about it.’ 

‘We were wrong. It was – is – rather an unpleasant feeling.’ In the absence of any bench or chair the Doctor moved to sit on the stairs, weariness rising from him and tainting the air like smoke. ‘I had to tell Tegan we couldn’t go back in time and rescue him. But I couldn’t explain why. Not properly. I had no idea..’ The sentence fractured in another sad smile, resumed again. ‘They argued a great deal, you see. But he died saving her planet and as you can imagine she’s terribly upset.’

‘They are rather a guilt-ridden species, of course.’

‘You’re a great comfort.’ 

‘Is that why you came? Looking for comfort? Reassurance that you did the right thing perhaps?’

‘No, not at all. I think I came just because you’re alive. You..survive. I realise that doesn’t make a great deal of sense.’ He tried again. ‘I came..’ It was easier to open his mind a little, to nudge, if only weakly with them so far apart. To let the Master sense his anger and frustration and fear of loss. 

‘Ah.’ The Master said softly, leaning in closer. ‘I think I understand.’

The echo was so weak, almost indistinguishable from the background babble of the cosmos, and yet unmistakably the Doctor, watching him unblinkingly as he freed one hand from its black leather glove and slid it carefully against the pulse at the Doctor’s temple, pale, featherlight hair tickling across the back of his wrist.

The Doctor closed his eyes, probably purely to assist concentration, but it looked like a gesture of trust, and the Master had to derail the impulse to kiss him before it floated to the top of his mind where it would be instantly seen.

_‘I’m here.’_ He thought instead, since that was so clearly what the Doctor needed to understand. _‘I am here, and I am alive.’_ The experiment he had undertaken, the cycle of seasons, the pattern of existence, sitting just behind the main refrain, supporting and giving it weight.

It didn’t take long to reassure. The Master let the connection loosen once it was done, trailing his fingers down the line of the Doctor’s jaw to his chin, tipping it back gently so that their eyes met again.

‘If I were you, I still wouldn’t trust me too far.’ He said seriously. 

‘And how far is too far?’ 

‘I don’t know Doctor. That’s long been the problem.’


	3. Chapter 3

Although the town itself had gained detail – ironwork scrolling at the windows, delicate marbling through the central fountain, and ever-increasing numbers of small silver lizards with jewel bright eyes which crept out beyond the walls into the undergrowth and relayed data back to the Master’s psychogenesic web and thence to him - the Master still lived and on those rare cases he felt the need, certainly slept, in the safety of his Tardis. 

Thus he was just dozing off in his library chair – a fat, squashy, phenomenally ugly recliner that he found too comfortable to dispose of – when the gentle tolling of a bell brought him back to consciousness again. Someone was trying to get in.

A moment of concentration and the binary image of the Doctor, both as seen through the Tardis monitors and the slow-blinking eyes of a lizard sentinel, drew him up to his feet, yawning delicately and brushing down his waistcoat. 

‘It’s very difficult to work out how to knock on the door of this you know.’ The Doctor stepped back to look up at the long, Corinthian column as the entrance finally made itself apparent, the Master pulling on his gloves. ‘How is anyone supposed to know if you’re in or not?’

‘You would be astonished how few people that inconveniences.’ The Master said drily. ‘Is something wrong, Doctor?’

‘Do you know Councillor Borusa at all?’ 

‘I knew him before he attained his current exalted state.’ Sarcasm lay thick on the Master’s words. ‘I also know he tried to have you killed.’

‘Well, in his defence he was trying to prevent..’ But the sharpening, cynical arch of the Master’s eyebrow halted the tide of excuses before it really got going.

‘Anyway, never mind all that unpleasantness.’ The Doctor said, changing tack. ‘I actually came to your retreat hoping to make some repairs.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘Usually I just anchor her in the vortex but I’m a little jumpy about being recalled again. I thought if I landed her and put the parking brake on it might give me some leeway.’

‘I see.’

‘I also thought you might be interested in visiting the Crall nebula. Extraordinary particle diffusion. You remember you had a theory on that? The royal house of Crall have been collecting data for hundreds of years. I thought it might be useful to you if you’ve never been.’ 

‘You’re not concerned I might slaughter the sovereign and attempt to take over the place?’ 

‘I am concerned about both those things, but I thought perhaps if I asked you to promise you might be honest with me, and then I’ll know whether to reconsider my suggestion.’

‘My dear Doctor, don’t you think you’re being rather naïve?’

‘I do wish you’d stop responding to every question I ask with one of your own.’ The open, friendly expression suddenly became terribly serious, as though a mask had been dropped over it. Or, perhaps, from it. ‘You tell me. May I stay, would you like to come to Crall, and do I have your word? In that order.’

The Master smiled. ‘Of course.’ He stepped back to encourage the Doctor forward. ‘But I suggest we travel in my Tardis. Even on its best days I don’t trust yours to arrive where it’s meant to. In return I will endeavour to curb my bloodthirsty instincts.’ 

He turned to the console, intending to close the door, then looked up to find the other Timelord still dithering just outside the threshold. ‘Come _in_ , Doctor.’

Finally making up his mind, the Doctor smiled again, shrugged remarkably gracefully, and stepped into the Master’s Tardis. 

 

_This_ Doctor by contrast is all elbows and awkwardness, fifty words a minute while his mouth races to keep up with his mind, and behind it, where he thinks the Master hasn’t seen, all the things this endless vim and clamour is meant to be a distraction from.

There is something terribly appealing about all that. The Doctor besieged by war and left without the option of a right thing to do. Forced to settle for the least worst and being left broken by it, even a century later. Still aching to be punished. 

The Master is truly sorry not to oblige him - but once lift the lid on that unpleasant impulse and worlds will burn before his anger is satisfied, and with them the last of his sanity. The Doctor will have to settle for torturing himself instead.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Far too much talking..

Here, on what was once Castrovalva, it is autumn again, and leaves pile, incomprehensibly, in non-existent corners, swirl against things that can only be glimpsed but never directly seen. A marble fountain and floor overlaying the bare rock, arches and stairs that lead nowhere, metal scrollwork at the windows - all just in the corner of the eye, vanishing as soon as the Doctor turns his head towards them. 

‘What an extraordinary effect.’ He says. ‘A bit uncanny though.’ 

The rich tapestry that once protected the Master’s experiment slides across the skin, the bare ghost of itself. Behind it the web of conduits and connections is grey and dusty, the power trapped inside it rising and falling like the laboured breath of a wounded animal. 

The Master moves around it cautiously, careful not to touch the rods that carry the current. Presses instead on the plates that form the interface, and focusses on drawing a shape in the air with his mind. 

Almost at once – the Doctor is impressed by how quickly this happens – the outline of the town sharpens, the planes painting themselves in from the inside, gaining solidity, even texture. A flash of silver (not, he remembers suddenly, gold) streaks along one of the walls. But it’s clearly far harder than it should be, veins standing on the Master’s neck and lips setting in a thin, impatient line, and it flickers as soon as he stops, begins to collapse back as quickly as it formed, dwindling away to a phantom again.

‘Temperature damage.’ The Doctor suggests. ‘And corrosion, of course. It’s been standing here for centuries.’ 

‘I think I might take it down anyway. I may be able to adapt some of the parts.’ 

He doesn’t explain what he’s intending to adapt them for. At this stage he only has the vaguest idea himself.

 

The royal house of Crall were visiting elsewhere at the moment, but their data on particle diffusion – indeed all their scientific data – was available upon application to the palace librarian. Since much of it was recorded on obsolete and incompatible cartridges, a bank of different reading devices, all linked for convenience to the same monitor, was put at their disposal. 

At first the Doctor found it quite interesting, poking around in the rest of the notes while the Master studied those that were relevant, and to begin with it was reasonably companionable, each looking up when the other drew their attention. As the Master began to find the patterns he was looking for though and his usually terrifying focus asserted itself, it seemed an imposition to interrupt.

Eventually the Doctor went to look for tea instead. They did a rather nice white tea here, with pink flower buds that opened up into small stars, and a faint but heady scent reminiscent of jasmine. It went particularly well with the black-honey biscuits and cream that this region also made a speciality of, but he preferred to save that pleasure for when the Master was ready to tear himself away from his data. 

The Master inspected his green glass cup narrowly as it was set beside him.

‘I didn’t realise you’d gone off somewhere.’ He took a sip, surprised at the hedonistic richness of what was essentially flavoured water. It tasted young, if such a thing were possible. ‘How long have I been working?’

‘About 4 hours. Did you find what you wanted?’

‘I’d like a little longer.’

‘Of course.’

‘Something is bothering you.’ A statement of fact, not a question. 

‘I just went for a walk along one of their canals. I was thinking of Omega. Whether he’s really at rest now, or can ever be.’ The Doctor dropped into the swivel chair next the Master’s own, half turned to face him. ‘It doesn’t help that I don’t really understand what’s keeping him together anymore. Your experiments with Castrovalva..’

‘My experiments have shown that it is possible to form matter – and one assumes anti-matter - from focussed mental pressure and complex calculation, yes.’

‘So it might be possible to hold one’s essence together by the same method. By force of will and intellect.’ The Doctor reasoned. ‘But without the..’ He sought the right phrase a moment. ‘Biological jelly, and the myriad electrical impulses that make a living brain, surely any mind would..’

‘Lose coherency? Yes. As your experience with Omega has amply illustrated.’

The Doctor swirled the dregs of his tea around in his cup. ‘I can’t help feeling it would have been kinder of fate to have let him die.’

‘There’s no such thing as fate Doctor. No deity to petition on the madman’s behalf.’

‘It’s not a deity I’m thinking of. Don’t you feel sometimes, when things like this have to happen, that there should have been another way? If you just had time to find it.’

‘It is dryly amusing how we describe ourselves as Timelords – when in truth time rules us. Just as it does every other crawling, masticating creature in this universe.’

‘My old friend Chesterton used to say – of his own species – that either an angel had fallen or an animal had gone mad. Although I believe he preferred the former explanation.’ 

‘Then he was delusional.’ 

‘Perhaps, but there was something in it don’t you think? If we can aspire to be angels perhaps our behaviours will be in keeping with our hopes.’

That sounded precisely like the sort of woolly thing the Doctor would think. The Master refrained from comment and, after a few minutes more of silence, withdrew quietly back into the realm of mathematics.


	5. Chapter 5

When the Master has a project to concentrate on the cosmos stops spinning dizzily around him. It’s still there of course, the mad dance of the stars, but it recedes to the point he can ignore it. 

Perhaps that’s why even before the web is fully dismantled he begins building something new from the pieces, commandeering an old radiograph and some of the flexible hose from inside a coffee machine as well as cannibalising three separate mobile phones for parts. 

It is, as far as the Doctor can see, the telepathic equivalent of a megaphone, amplifying the Master’s own mental focus and allowing it to travel further. The Doctor tinkers with the Tardis console again to keep himself busy, and hopes that this doesn’t mean the Master is going to mass-hypnotise another swathe of the galaxy. Or at least, if he is, that it’ll only be for reasons of purely scientific interest and he’ll lose interest once he’s succeeded. 

He’s still angry, bubbling underneath, and there’s something else, a bleak satisfaction that the Doctor only gradually comes to understand. He’s not pleased to find his planet and people gone, but it seems – as everything about the war seems – to be nothing but confirmation of what he already knew about the universe and the petty creatures that populate it. 

It is the Doctor who is still recuperating from horror and guilt, and something more, a twisting and confusion of memories that he cannot let the Master probe too deeply but which are strangely, subtly wrong. Visibly wrong, even from the outside. 

‘There should have been another way.’ The Doctor says, late one evening when they are trying and failing to sleep, top to tail in a hammock, watching the crackle of flame from a campfire of leaves and logs brought back from the surrounding forests. 

‘I think I’ve heard that sentiment from you before.’

‘Many, many times.’ The Doctor admits, squeezing the Master’s hand where it rests against his thigh. It’s nice here, looking up at the stars, and he wishes they could both enjoy it without their wayward brains ruining the moment, but they’ve already both dashed in different directions, on to the next thing, even while their bodies lie here completely still. 

Except for breathing. They are both, thankfully, still breathing.

‘I really should go and check on Jack and Martha.’ He says at last, putting words to persistent thought. 

‘If you’re bored Doctor you only have to say so.’

‘No, really. I mean it. Especially Jack. I feel sort of responsible for Jack, and I’ve been avoiding him.’

‘That’s because he’s a freak and it makes your skin crawl to be anywhere near him.’ 

The Master doesn’t need to be able to see it to know the Doctor’s face has scrunched up in discomfort at how blunt he’s being.

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’ 

‘No, you told him he was ‘wrong’ with enormous sensitivity.’ 

‘You were listening in?’ The hammock sways dangerously as the Doctor tries to bounce up without warning and catch his eye. He fails, but he doesn’t tip them out either, which is something.

‘Of course I was listening in.’ The more impetuous the Doctor seems the more the Master is determined to appear calm. ‘I may have been a little naïve as a human but I hadn’t lost all sense of self-preservation.’

The Doctor subsides back onto his side of the hammock with a snort of laughter. ‘Hidden depths?’ He asks. 

‘As ever.’ 

‘Will you be alright if I..’

‘Of course.’ The Master interrupts, squeezing the hand he’s still holding in turn. ‘I’m not human _now_.’

‘I meant to confiscate Jack’s wriststrap.’ The Doctor admits. ‘I got distracted.’

‘And I didn’t even have to put my plans for global Armageddon into effect.’ The Master says drily, knowing the Doctor can't tell if he's serious or not.

He smirks up at the night sky. He never named the constellations here, but perhaps they would have been called after some of the false legends he wrote. Imphaka, Stalkor, Razilor the Unbidden. 

‘Go Doctor.’ He says. ‘I’ll be fine. If nothing else I still have my wits.’


	6. Chapter 6

‘And I say we take my Tardis this time. I’ve got the co-ordinates for the eye of Orion programmed in, for goodness sake. I know exactly how to get there.’ The Doctor patted affectionately at the doorframe. ‘And she needs the run, don’t you old girl?’

‘And if your repairs are faulty and we run smack into a neutron star or crash-land at the bottom of a lunar ocean?’

‘Then your assistance and expertise will be invaluable and much appreciated.’

Smirking, the Master let the Doctor have that round. All this bickering was curiously enjoyable, but then the Master had always thought language worked rather better as a complex form of entertainment than a means of communication. 

What lay beneath it, the undercurrent of baffled affection and lust that neither of them could help but be aware of, was far more worryingly real. Either it would have to come to something soon, or they must make the effort to pull themselves apart again. 

The latter, realistically. A pity, but there it was. 

‘You go Doctor. I’m sure we’ll see each other soon enough.’ 

‘Oh.’ The Doctor said, somewhat deflated, but covering it up with immaculate good manners. ‘Well of course, if you’re sure.’ He stepped back into his Tardis, turned to shake hands as though thanking a neighbour for a pleasant evening’s meal. ‘Goodbye then.’ 

 

Once the Doctor had offloaded and arranged a number of supposedly vital things that the Master probably wouldn't need but hadn't the heart to refuse, and dematerialised with a noise that suggested the Tardis needed a little work on the brakes, the Master finally dove into the bottom of his toolbox and removed the small pieces of time circuitry his human self had – somewhat hopelessly – put away against such time as he might understand them. Since there were already places ready for them in the structure he had created, it took a bare 15 minutes to fix them in place. Then he leant his hands back against the teleoperational interface and focussed on one particular time and place, and one particular and very alien mind. 

Over a thousand light years and at least five hundred actual years away a slim silver-skulled robot set down his work and lifted his head as new instructions began to fill it. He was, if he were honest with himself, a little irritated. He had thought he was free of this particular master. Nevertheless, since it would undoubtedly be simpler to obey than resist, he raised himself to his feet. Later, he trusted, he would be allowed to return to his preferred task.


	7. Chapter 7

Despite the assurance that their paths would cross again eventually the Doctor had not expected to meet the Master in 13th century Europe in a muddy field and masquerading as King John’s best swordsman, although in retrospect he couldn’t think why he bothered to be surprised. 

That the ‘King’ was an android under the Master’s direct telepathic control and in the process of maligning the real King’s name and derailing the signing of Magna Carta was rather more of a concern. 

Not least because the Master truly couldn’t see what the fuss was about. 

‘Think of it as an experiment in living history.’ He suggested. ‘Don’t you think it might be interesting to know if past events really make any difference in the long run?’ 

‘Of course they do.’ The Doctor insisted, taking up a position not dissimilar to their earlier swordfight. Parry and thrust. ‘You can’t just interfere with the timeline of a species like this.’ 

‘Nonsense, it’s just one piece of parchment in one small country.’ 

‘At this early stage in a planet’s history..’

‘Yes, yes. Thank you Doctor, I did attend that lecture. What you really mean of course is this country has a wider historical footprint through its nasty habit of invading other countries and imposing its values on theirs.’ He said, with smooth and apparently oblivious hypocrisy. ‘Has it occurred to you those other civilisations and individuals may even have reason to thank me? Particularly those they’re waging this unpleasant crusade against. The librarians at Constantinople for example.’

‘You actually have studied the planet’s history haven’t you?’ The Doctor asked, momentarily diverted. 

‘Yes Doctor, in passing.’

‘Naturally I don’t approve of war, or the wholesale destruction of learning. But we can’t interfere in past events. There are things I’d like to change if I could, but I know I must resist.’ He said earnestly. ‘And you certainly can’t change things out of idle curiosity. You might think you were making them better and make them much worse. Causality isn’t something you can control.’ 

‘Oh hurry up and foil me then, why don’t you?’ The Master suggested, moving closer, taunting. ‘Or stop being so melodramatic. It is after all just a piece of paper with some ink on it.’

‘No, it isn’t. You’re forgetting the psychology of the species.’ The Doctor refused to step back, even leant forwards, warming to his theme. Between them, still on his makeshift throne, the robot king watched with interest. ‘Humans aren’t like us. They invent legends to understand their past and write stories to plan their future, to extend the narrative beyond the parameters of their own lifetimes. They have to, being so short-lived. It’s the way they create something for the next generation to pick up and carry on. It’s vital to them as a species.. and you’re only doing this to annoy me anyway.’ He lapsed back as he realised the fact. ‘It’s a positive peccadillo by your standards and you don’t even want to rule in this place and time anyway. It’s damp and backward and the food is appalling.’ Then, after a moment’s quiet which the Master steadily refused to fill. ‘You know I had hoped we were beyond this sort of ridiculousness.’

‘Had you Doctor? So what would you suggest instead?’ 

‘We could simply leave. They already think we’re demons. If we take your ‘king’ and let Sir Geoffrey and the son of the house loose to spread their tale they’ll almost certainly decide it was all a delusion.’ 

‘Ah. And what is there in that for me?’

‘My continued goodwill.’

‘Nothing more?’ The Master looked as though he were laughing. ‘You disappoint me. Still if it must be so it must.’

He sighed, deep and dramatic. ‘My Tardis is in the dungeon with the young hothead who keeps urging me to kill him and the old fool who doesn’t know when to hold his tongue. You may release them on the way if you think you can do so without being butchered.’ He beckoned to his robot. ‘Come along your majesty.’

‘Where is he from anyway?’ The Doctor asked, half his attention on creeping down the stairs past doorways with nothing but tapestries drawn across to protect them from notice. 

‘It was a gift from the Xeraphin. I did them a small service.’

‘My name is Kamelion.’ The robot added, apparently on his own initiative. 

‘Delighted to meet you.’ The Doctor smiled and turned to shake hands. ‘You’re capable of autonomous thought then?’

‘Of a limited kind.’ The Master interrupted, smoothly.

‘Will I want to know what you did to deserve him?’ 

‘Oh I think you’d probably approve. Which is why I’m not going to tell you.’ 

Having resumed his passage down the stairs, the Doctor threw the exasperation itself in the Master’s direction rather than a look. 

‘Sometimes I think you thoroughly enjoy having a reputation. I mean why else pretend to be a demon? Come to that why have your tardis disguise itself as an implement of torture?’

‘I didn’t consciously choose that facade you know. Although I admit it did amuse me when I realised. It suits me, don’t you think?’

‘There’s a certain grim charm I suppose.’

‘How was the Eye of Orion Doctor?’ 

‘I didn’t get there. I got caught in a time warp.’ He admitted. ‘Do feel free to laugh.’

‘Later perhaps.’ Was all the Master said, but the satisfaction in his voice was rich and thick as cream.


	8. Chapter 8

The Bank of the Feigrasa is old, discreet and, most importantly for the Master’s purpose, fully automated. All Kamelion needs to access the vault is the pin number. 

As instructed he ignores the piles of coin in various currencies, the small shelf of rare poisons and antidotes, the ornate rings that may or may not be other than they seem. 

The Master’s wants at the moment are more straightforward. Just one of the energy weapons from the rack, the spare key to the Master’s own tardis, should he ever find it, and the vortex manipulator he keeps stored here in case of emergencies. 

It only remains for the android to program in the co-ordinates the Master has told him to, and engage the device. 

If he is surprised to find himself in a kind of outdoor room, with a marquee erected at one end to protect delicate equipment, and a couch on which a being might rest, with storage boxes piled thigh high around him, he shows no sign.

Nor does he see fit to comment on the Master’s new appearance. He simply sets down the energy pistol on the nearest box and holds out his wrist passively for the Master to remove the wrist-strap. 

‘I should like to go back.’ He has always had more autonomy over his vocal functions than the rest, and that, at least, he does want to say. ‘I believe I was doing useful work.’ 

‘Yes of course.’ It is no part of the plan for anyone – even the Doctor – to realise the android can still be commanded. ‘I’ll do that first.’ 

‘And then?’

‘And then after that I’m pursuing a memory.’ 

‘A memory of a specific kind?’ 

‘An unpleasant memory. One I’ve lost.’ 

‘Would it not be better..’

‘Enough Kamelion. Don’t make me dismantle you for parts.’ 

‘You will not dismantle me for parts. You find me too useful in this form.’

‘Quite right. Now. Rest your hand here on my arm, and we’ll put you back.’

The Tardis rematerializes less than 15 minutes after the Master has left. This is of course cheating, since the Doctor has actually been away two weeks, but he can’t help himself. There’s a constant niggling sense that something isn’t right with the Master. Not least because they both have these odd barely-discussed holes in their memory of the last moments of the war - and while it might just be a side effect of time distortion or trauma it might be very much more. 

He is frustrated but not entirely surprised to find the Master missing, his web augmented with a few crucial components he had clearly kept hidden up to now, and the slight taint of particle diffusion in the air. 

A scan confirms it. A vortex manipulator has been recently activated in the vicinity. 

‘Oh of course he had a way off the planet.’ He says aloud, throwing himself down on the comfy chair he left behind for the Master’s use. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid Doctor. Of course he still had an ace up his sleeve. He practically admitted he did.’ 

 

The chamber of the High Council of Gallifrey was not, to the Master’s mind, a particularly impressive place. Were he to have the ordering of it there would be a little more luxury, a lot more room to move about, and fewer of those fussy decorative swirls that served no purpose except to offend the eye. 

The idea, of course, was that a visitor would be awed by the dignitaries themselves rather than the chamber. A pity then that the current incumbent was that idiot Borusa, stumbling over himself to tell the Master how much he disapproved of him. 

A curious and unnecessarily long-winded way to antagonise someone he clearly meant to ask a favour of, but no doubt the man would come to the point eventually. 

The explanation, when it came, had an anachronistic flavour. The timescoop and the Death Zone were things of the past, ancient history that the Timelords flattered themselves they had shaken off, although neither had actually been destroyed. That the Doctor had unaccountably found himself there in four of his five forms was strangely unstrange. The Doctor was drawn to trouble and trouble drawn to the Doctor. There was nothing odd in that. 

‘Have you considered going in to look for him?’ He asked. Beginning, against his wishes, to be concerned. 

‘We sent in a delegation, but they didn’t come back.’ The Master sat in silence and waited for the next, inevitable, remark. 'You are known to be somewhat resourceful.’

‘And expendable of course.’

At that there were polite and thoroughly insincere protests. He waited for them to pass without comment.

‘You intend to ask me to rescue the Doctor?’ He tried to sound as though the idea was ridiculous, but Flavia at least looked more knowing than convinced. 

‘It is our understanding that there has been something of a truce between you of late. And that you perhaps have particular reason to be grateful to him.’

‘Comforted as I am to know that that the High Council keeps a paternal eye on its renegades.’ The Master said sourly. ‘If you were truly paying attention you might notice that I’m not in the habit of being grateful.’

‘Do you mean to deny.’ Flavia asked. ‘That you would regret the Doctor’s expunction from history?’

‘A universe without the Doctor?’ The Master honestly considered the idea. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  


The Master is uncomfortable watching from the top of a crevasse, laying himself flat on the soft aluminium-composite rock (calling it the silver devastation was evidently just the usual human craving for romance) while the confused and silent child – his mother had always complained that he was unnaturally stoic, that no-one ever knew what he was thinking unless he wanted them to – is led down the valley away from the high formation of salt crystals that the Master knows to really be a tardis. 

Useful though it is to see the means, there is, frustratingly, no real answer here to the more important questions, that (which the Doctor has already asked) of how he became a child, or where the drums in his head come from. Or why here, or why this child, or those Timelords, or that tardis exist at all, when the Doctor believes he burned everything, back and forth through time. 

The Master considers waiting for the two guards to come back without him, then shooting them and stealing their tardis. It’s tempting, both as primitive revenge and from a practical point of view. But there is no guarantee that the tardis is not still linked to the Gallifreyan war machine and liable to recall at any moment, and a simpler and more elegant retribution (and one less likely to cause a paradox) would be to allow them to return to the war and be destroyed in due course with the rest. 

It makes sense then, to simply return to Castrovalva. 

He finds the Doctor sleeping, curled up on his side on the divan. The Doctor sleeps when tired, when bored, and when worried, and on this occasion it is probably all three. It seems natural to slip in behind him, to rest his cheek against the Doctor’s narrow back, his fingers loosely twined around the Doctor’s wrist, and nudge, just gently, with his mind until the Doctor wakes. 

‘Master?’ Then, as consciousness returns. ‘I’m not pleased with you.’ 

‘I suspected you might not be.’ He lets himself rub his cheek cat-like against the Doctor’s spine, rucking up the fine material of his shirt. ‘But you must allow me to keep some secrets.’

‘Will you at least tell me where you’ve been?’

‘I went to see how Professor Yana was born.’ It is easier to say the rest in pictures: the quiet child, the men in robes, the pointless anger. 

‘You should have told me. What if something had happened?’

‘One day Doctor you will realise the futility of worrying about me.’ 

At that the Doctor pulls away and turns all in one vigorous movement. ‘Oh of course. After all, you’ve only been executed by Daleks once. Why would I be worried?’

‘Don’t be absurd.’ 

‘No I’m serious. You can’t just do these things. How would I have found you if you were imprisoned, or injured, or dragged back into the war?’

The Master’s eyes narrow dangerously. He refuses to be controlled, even benevolently, and the Doctor is certainly in no position to accuse him of recklessness. 

‘I’m not a child Doctor. Nor am I one of your oh-so-fragile companions. I’m perfectly capable.’

‘We’re all that’s left.’ He sounds like he’s pleading. ‘I can’t lose you again.’

‘And evidently you don’t think emotional blackmail beneath you.’

Now they have both gone too far. The Doctor tries to reach across the gap, to send the feelings he cannot help having, but the Master’s mind is locked tight again. 

After a further period of silence he lays back down, facing away. His back rigid with tension. 

‘Will you at least tell me what you’re working on?’

The Master sighs. Soft, barely there. ‘My dear.. I don’t mean to hurt you, but it is useless for me to make promises I know I won’t keep.’ 

‘If I had known they had brought you back..’ The Doctor won't, can't finish what he is trying to say.

‘You would have done exactly what you did do.' The Master assures him. 'Whatever that turns out to have been.’ 

‘I daren’t hope for any sort of.. I daren’t hope for anything.’ 

‘Perhaps not. But I mean to have answers, one way or another.’ 

‘So that’s what you’re working on.’ The Doctor should have known, really. 

‘Yes. That’s what I’m working on.’

This time when the Doctor reaches out, the Master meets him halfway.


	9. Chapter 9

‘They’re sort of enemies.’ Tegan explained.

‘Sort of?’

‘On and off. I don’t really understand it, but I’ve been gone a while. I don’t know how long.’ She frowned. ‘Funny, the Doctor looked like he’d been poleaxed or something when he saw me, and then he invited me along.’

‘It’s complicated with a Tardis.’ Susan smiled, remembering. ‘It’s one of the reasons grandfather left me behind I think. He knew I’d never be able to fit with anyone else while we were still travelling.’

‘But he did come back.’

‘No, not yet, we found each other here.’

‘They call it a time scoop.’ The Master, now that he was close enough, looked quizzically at her. ‘Your education, my dear, seems to have been woefully neglected.’

He looked meaningfully at the Doctor, who just shrugged. ‘Well, perhaps I didn’t think she needed to know about the crimes of her ancestors.’

‘Ah yes, your scheme that we pretend to be angels in the hope we grow wings.’

The Doctor bristled. ‘That is not what I..’

‘Doctor!’ Tegan interrupted. ‘Look!’

They ran for shelter while the cybermen took aim, Susan stumbling awkwardly as they reached the relative safety of the trees and her ankle turned over. She managed a few short steps more as Tegan and the Doctor ran to help her into cover. The Master, realising he was as usual the only one with a weapon, and that not really designed for long distance work, cursed quietly and tried to shrink the nearest lumbering cyborg down to a more manageable size.

Somehow he only got the head, withering it away like an over-ripe tomato, rolling off as the tortured metal sheered and their pursuer keeled over.

He could feel the Doctor radiating disapproval, but that was generally best ignored.

 

There aren’t many more nights that they lie together and look up at the stars. The Doctor is restless, and the Master too involved in his experiments to pay attention. A part of it is self-defence. It is in their nature to pull away and be pulled back. To push forward and be repelled, locked in some mad elliptical orbit around one another, afraid to get too close for fear they will tangle together too tight, be unable to put their individual pieces together again.

Rationally the Doctor knows he should be less concerned about leaving now he knows the Master has a vortex manipulator. He isn’t, but he pretends and perhaps, eventually, he will convince himself.

Then there’s Donna. She invites herself along, which is lovely, and she’s a friend in that wonderful uncomplicated way that the Doctor doesn’t remember experiencing since.. goodness, can it really be since he worked with the Brigadier?

The Master is not pleased, although he must know – surely he knows they’re just mates? He’s made some sort of convection heater, and Donna is grateful for it, although it’s not cold here by Timelord standards.

The Doctor offers to make cocoa, and that is when they have the second row, the Master following him into the Tardis so Donna doesn’t hear.

‘Sorry, sorry. Is it because I brought her here? I just happened to be passing and I..’

‘Was worried about me again.’

‘Yes, alright, was worried about you again. I do worry about you, you know, can’t help it.’

‘And now you’ve given yourself another thing to worry about, and no doubt I’ll be expected to care if something happens to her as well. I don’t understand why you keep picking up these strays. They’re nothing but a nuisance.’

‘Now that’s not fair.’ The Doctor is sensitive about the calibre of his companions. ‘You were busy anyway.’

‘As you would be Doctor, if you weren’t so easily distracted.’

‘And that’s not fair either. I offered to help you with whatever you’re building.’ The Doctor pauses for a moment, thinking about the configuration of the tubing and the cellulose connectors the Master is now using rather than more traditional wires. Walks back out to take another look at the thing, brow furrowed. ‘If you don’t mind me asking - what exactly are you building?’

The Master grits his teeth and prays for patience.

‘As I’m certain you can tell but presumably have your own reasons for pretending otherwise, it’s a transmitter – receiver. I’m going to track back this din in my head and find out what it is once and for all.’

‘Sorry.’ Donna interrupts, pulling the Doctor a little way away but not really lowering her voice. ‘What’s in his head?’

‘Some kind of telepathic.. thing.’ The Doctor says. ‘A signal maybe. We’re not sure.’

‘Can you track back a ‘telepathic thing’?’ She makes air quotes with her fingers to highlight the Doctor’s incoherence, obviously unimpressed.

The Master decides he almost likes her. Certainly he likes her effect on the Doctor, who decides to stop waffling on and think.

‘Well, probably. Maybe. By returning a pulse at the same frequency and measuring how long it takes to bounce back. Same sort of idea as radar. Or maybe if that doesn't work just.. waiting and seeing if there’s a response.’

‘A response from who, exactly?’

‘Ah.’ The Doctor thinks, turns. ‘Are we sure we’re not going to regret this?’ He asks.

The Master leans against the Tardis door with a half-shrug that’s meant to convey that he’s already asked himself all these questions and is going to do it anyway, whatever anyone thinks.

‘Ah’ The Doctor says. ‘Right.’

 

‘You know we didn’t run into any cybermen before we met you.’ The Doctor said. ‘And that’s the third platoon now.’

‘Well it’s nothing to do with me. At least...’ His eyes narrowed as a thought occurred.

‘How are you keeping in touch with the High Council?’

‘Transmat device.’ The Master had already taken the small gold globe out, following the same train of thought. Now he opened the casing with a twist of the fingers, revealing the inside. Most of it was standard transmat function, but there was also a small component flashing on and off with an intermittent signal.

‘Homing beacon.’ The Doctor fished in his pockets for the rubber handled pliers he kept handy and tugged the wire free from the battery. ‘There. We can always reconnect it if we need to use the transmat. I wouldn’t be too eager though if I were you. Who gave you this?’

‘The Castellan, but that doesn’t mean he put it together. I take your point though. It’s all of a piece with the time scoop isn’t it?’

‘Oh yes. Someone very high up is behind this.’

‘Perhaps all of them.’ The Master speculated. ‘Possibly this is what the High Council does with its renegades these days. Drops us into the Death Zone with a lot of cybermen and waits to see if we kill each other before they do.’

‘Well I don’t see why they’d have to drag me and Susan into it.’ Tegan pointed out.

‘That my dear Ms Jovanka is a surprisingly good point. Expendable as you no doubt are from an objective standpoint..’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You haven’t actually committed any offence that would justify bringing you here to be slaughtered.’

‘So we’re looking at a traitor then.’ The Doctor considered the transmat. ‘You know it might be better if one of us went back and investigated things at the other end.’

‘I think not Doctor. You might fully intend to return and yet still be prevented.’

‘I didn’t mean me.’

From his glance towards her it was quite clear who he did mean, and although Susan protested that she hadn’t been in the citadel since she was a child, the Doctor only insisted that this was all the more reason she should visit now. She would enjoy it much more now she was grown up, and he was certain she would like Flavia.

Tegan backed him up. Obviously the Master couldn’t be trusted to go and Susan could rest her ankle if she got out of this place. They’d been chased too far from the Tardis to go back, and although she didn’t say it, everyone knew Susan was slowing them down. Tegan was pretty well, although not openly, browned off by now.

The Master, who was struggling to see any resemblance between this strikingly average young woman and the Doctor, was not inclined to disagree. She seemed the kind of girl who invariably twisted her ankle or got kidnapped, and whereas he or the Doctor might be eliminated as a threat, she would probably be given a warm drink and told to rest. Besides, now he knew he had been set up he had no real desire to return. Not as long as the Doctor remained here to suffer along with him.

 

‘You should have seen his fifth self. Bristling like an aggravated duckling..’ Since he appears to be stuck with her for a bit the Master has decided to make the best of a bad job and amuse himself telling by Donna funny stories about the Doctor’s past while he tries to adjust the frequency modulator again. All in the Doctor's hearing of course.

So far the Doctor has managed to grin and bear it in silence, but at this point he has to interrupt.

‘Oh you can talk, prancing about in leather gloves and black velvet like the pantomime prince of demon kings.’

‘I am the pantomime prince of demon kings.’ The Master says serenely. ‘You on the other hand..’

‘Am not a duckling, no.’

‘More of a string bean.’ Donna says. ‘So how does it work then, this regeneration business?’

‘Oh that’s a much longer story. And one we’re still not sure we fully understand. You see, on some level a Timelord is his or her own timestream. This..’

‘Fragile cage of flesh and bone.’ The Master suggests.

‘Um, yes, if you like. Well, when that breaks, the energy of the timestream pulls the body back together in a different pattern. Timelords with the strongest minds, still able to focus through regeneration, can come back in a chosen form. Some few even outlive their own timestreams.’

 

‘Do you think he’s still alive in there?’ The Doctor asked, nodding towards Rassilon’s tower, stark and forbidding and still, for all their walking, distant.

‘Perhaps. For a given definition of alive.’

‘You make this Rassilon fella sound like Dracula.’ Tegan said, eyeing the path ahead apprehensively.

It was on the tip of the Doctor’s tongue to suggest that wouldn’t be so bad and perhaps the Master could lend him his cape then, but he stifled the impulse. They weren’t exactly at the gentle teasing stage yet.


	10. Chapter 10

It’s Donna who suggests a trip back to see where the Master’s got to with his transceiver thing. They’re both of them quiet, not themselves, and another adventure is not what either of them need just yet. The Doctor saved River, but knows he only left her with half a life, and Donna is still suffering whiplash from the loss of husband and children. 

She knows the sense of time passing was only an illusion, but it felt so real. 

The Master isn’t home when they arrive. There is however the front half of a Sontaran shuttle, neatly cut in three parts and bolted to the rock to form a kind of room that looks far more permanent than the marquee, and the shelves that were made by upending tardis storage boxes have been moved and reconstructed more solidly to form a windbreak. 

Some sort of black fur has been thrown over the hammock and the chair and a decanter and three glasses are set out by the heater, which is also on. 

‘We were expected.’ The Doctor says. He doesn’t bother wondering where the Master got so many things that clearly could not have been carried back by a vortex manipulator. Maybe he modified it to widen the reach, maybe he stole that Sontaran shuttle and the other half is being used as a shed or bolt-hole in the woods somewhere. There's no point speculating.

The zap and flare from just outside confirms they are expected, and the Master enters with an armful of wood, dropping it into a disembowelled satellite dish he apparently keeps for the purpose. 

‘You've made this very cosy.' The Doctor says. 'I didn't think we'd been gone that long.' 

‘Less than a month. But I’ve realised I’m going to need a satellite relay to compensate for the solar activity distortion, and I might as well be comfortable in the interim. Everything takes so much time when you don’t have minions.’ 

‘You’ve got me.’ The Doctor points out. ‘Couldn’t we just use the Tardis?’

The Master blinks, surprised. ‘Yes I suppose we could. I’d have to rebuild some of the matrix but it would still be simpler than trying to make something from scratch.’ He pulls up a box for Donna to sit on and takes the chair himself. ‘I thought you weren’t certain I should be doing this.’ 

‘Well if I thought something was being projected into my head I wouldn’t be able to ignore it either.’ There’s obviously more to that, something's happened, but he won’t let the Master probe too deeply, still processing it himself. Flinches as the Master stands and walks towards him, hand reaching up to his face. 

The Master aborts the move and they end up standing, inches apart, just looking at each other. 

‘Oi.' Donna interrupts at last, because this is just getting too weird. ‘Is anyone going to get us this drink?’ 

 

‘That was a bit ruthless even for you wasn’t it?’ Tegan looked at the fallen cybermen with distaste. Their howls as they got halfway across the floor still ringing in her ears. 

‘I shouldn’t waste too much sympathy. They wouldn’t on you.’ The Master stepped back across the lethal board neatly and safely, turned and performed the same trick again but on different squares, and far more quickly and theatrically, pleased with himself. 

The Doctor, watching with his head on one side, suddenly brightened. ‘Oh, of course. It’s pi.’ He stepped onto his first square. 

 

‘We all need a holiday.’ The Doctor insists. ‘Just a short one, a trip to the market.’

‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get some more components.’ The Master admits. 'I've got a list somewhere.'

 

'It's the mind of Rassilon, trying to hold us back. We must be getting very close now.' 

'I wish we'd never come.'

'Brave heart Tegan. We have to get the inhibitor turned off if we ever want to move the Tardis again, and the signal was coming from here.' 

'It feels dreadful.' 

'I could probably hypnotise you not to be afraid if you like.' The Master offered.

'No I would not like.' She said firmly, stomping past him to make the point. 

'Neatly done.' The Doctor murmured. 

'It's nothing really. Stubborn people are often the easiest to manipulate.'

 

After the madness, after everyone is gone bar one, the Master is seething. This is not ‘destroyed the daleks – more or less’ to his mind. He could also have done with fewer histrionics on the part of Rose, less smugness from Harkness, and just generally fewer people. As for the metacrisis and having to leave Donna with her memory erased. 

The Doctor knows better than most that any intelligent being is the sum of his memories. A Timelord – as Donna for a few glorious hours was – even more so. Now, even though her life has been saved, she is caged again, those limitless vistas taken from her. 

The Master is furious, and not improved by the fact that the Doctor doesn’t appear to be taking his ethics seriously.

‘I can have morals.’ He snarls. ‘If I didn’t have morals I’d have taken you out years ago. I could be the ruler of a substantial corner of the universe by now.’ 

 

‘You can’t trust him.’ The Doctor’s third self drew himself up to his full height to look down his nose more effectively at the seemingly younger and more naïve version. ‘Lower your guard for a second and he’ll stab you in the back.’

‘Oh no – in the front I’m sure. If only to see my expression.’

‘My dear chap, don’t be frivolous. Surely you recollect..’

They broke apart, argument forgotten as the Tardis arrived, and after that Borusa and Susan.

‘We have our traitor, I think.’ The Doctor observed. ‘Come to collect his prize.’ 

 

‘Orbiting at a rate of 40 turns per second and I’ve got your signal.’ The Doctor leaves the line open while he routes the test pulse through the internal relays. ‘There. You should be getting the readings now.’ 

Back on the planet’s surface, the Master bends over a screen to check the figures. ‘Yes, that’s perfect. I think we’re ready to go ahead.’

‘Fingers crossed then.’ The Doctor says, and the Master chuckles as he presses his palms onto the interface and engages the matrix. 

He doesn’t have to tell the Doctor he’s done so. The drumbeat echoes through the relays before it’s sent out into the universe, louder than he could possibly have anticipated, a pattern of four pulses, over and over again. 

One of the most unpredictable variables in this is that they couldn't be sure how long the Master can feasibly keep this up, but the signal isn’t weakening. If anything its getting louder. The Doctor checks his instruments again, frowning over what they're telling him.

‘Master.’ He asks, properly worried now. ‘What’s happening?

Stronger and stronger the drumbeat sounds, and now there is a responding beat, like an echo, coming the other way. 

The tolling of the cloister bell is only a confirmation that something is very wrong. 

'Master.' He says frantically. 'Can you hear me?' 

The Doctor can hear it inside his head now, loud enough that for a moment he can't think at all. The Tardis trembles around him.

He shakes it off and flicks a succession of switches to disable the relay, but it makes no difference. The drumbeat pounds on, deafening, smothering. 

‘Oh my dear Master.’ He murmurs. ‘What have we done?’


	11. Chapter 11

‘You’re remarkably quiet.’ The Doctor observed. 

‘I’ve been thinking.’ The Master said. ‘Has it occurred to anyone else that Rassilon is not only playing a rather unpleasant practical joke on those who want to live forever but accumulating them? Using his own tomb as a stockpile of particularly ruthless and resourceful minds.’

‘It hadn’t, no.’

‘What a remarkably unpleasant thought.’ Lethbridge-Stewart looked quite nauseous. ‘I can see why you would have it.’ 

‘Thank you Brigadier.’ 

 

‘Master.’ Fallen to his knees he looks old, but his eyes focus as he raises his head and sees the Doctor stumble from the Tardis, and he struggles up to his feet to meet him. 

‘There, Doctor.’ He points up at the burning world in the sky. So much greater than their own, small, domain. ‘We’re bringing it back.’ 

‘No.’ The Doctor shakes his head in disbelief. ‘That’s not just Gallifrey. You’re bringing back the war. Everything that came with the war. They’ll rip the universe apart.’ He hardly knows what he’s doing as he takes hold of the Master and forces him to make eye contact. ‘There will be nothing else left.’ 

But the Master is lost, eyes clouding over again.

‘He can’t help himself.’ The voice behind them is resonant, compelling. Horribly conceited. ‘This was always how it was going to be. This was why he was chosen.’ 

They turn as one to face the plinth, the steady, satisfied figure of Lord Rassilon gaining coherency as their two worlds begin to pull together.

‘You had no right.’ The Doctor tells him.

‘Traitor.’ Rassilon spits. ‘Millennia of history and you would see it fall.’

‘Everything falls.’ The Doctor tells him, reaching for words told to him in his own, recent past. ‘Everything has it’s time, and everything dies.’ 

‘Not the Timelords.’

‘You would be immortal Lord Rassilon?’ The Master is standing independently now, finding strength in anger. His mind clearing, his voice gently mocking. ‘But surely you know full well that immortality is not a blessing.’ 

‘I hardly think you can stop us. We have been in your head from the time you were a child.’ Behind him the High Council is silent, and bar one, unmoving. 

‘Then get out.’ There is a laser weapon to hand, a safety precaution of the Master’s, but it’s the Doctor who snatches it up and fires, shattering the matrix and finally breaking the connection. 

Rassilon howls, clutching his staff.

‘No.’

‘Go back. Back where you belong. Back to the time war. Back into hell.’ The anger the Doctor is radiating is almost as much a tonic as the Master’s own, but Rassilon will not go quietly as the worlds pull away again. At the loss of all his plans. He raises his staff and sends a blast of energy that throws the Doctor to the ground, the pistol dropping from his fingers. 

That is the last little thing the Master needs to shake completely free and act. The way he’s been used is adrenaline. Harm to the Doctor – his Doctor, who only he is allowed to harm - is something more. He lets himself hate, as he has not hated for centuries, strong and seething in his heart and mind. 

He ignores the energy pulses that just miss him as he picks up the gun. He would let this body be destroyed, would rip the universe apart even as he helps to save it. He can feel nothing but the anger. The deep, certain need to burn it all down.

‘You did this to me.’ He screams as he attacks, advancing despite being under fire, throwing everything his mind has at the President at the same moment. 

It is Rassilon who stumbles and kneels, shock on his face, and the satisfaction is exquisite, the thrill of pride. _I am the Master. I am not your puppet. You, who are long dead._

He advances still, following the vision as it fades, walking into that danger uncaring. Barely aware of arms trying to pull him back, a litany of ‘enough, enough’ from somewhere else outside his own temporary insanity. 

Everything is white hot and flame gold and glowing with fury. Fire in his veins, spilling out in the heat of regeneration. 

He is collapsing, those arms no longer around him, and the world goes dark.


	12. Chapter 12

‘I suppose Rassilon and Omega will be always with us.’ The Master had waited until Tegan went to change her shoes, but turned back to the subject the moment the door closed behind her. ‘Like gods.’

‘Fairly flawed gods don’t you think?’

‘Indeed. But what does that make us Doctor, if our species are not completely dependent on this biology? This – what were the words you used? Jelly and electrical impulses.’

‘What we always were.’ The Doctor said briskly. ‘I am me and you are you.’

‘You make it sound so simple.’

‘Some things are simple.’ 

‘Very well. I am me and you are you. And we were at the academy together.’

‘We were.’ He stopped fiddling with the instruments. ‘I’ve set a course for your own tardis, if you want to go back.’

‘Did you have somewhere else in mind?’

‘I’m still hoping for the Eye of Orion.’

At that the Master had to smile. ‘Oh very well. The Eye of Orion it is.’


	13. Epilogue

The Doctor is surprised to find himself alive and whole on the rock of Castrovalva and not, as he suspected, dragged back to the violent and bloody past. It was all he could do to stop the Master from wading in deeper. Pulling him any further out had been impossible. 

Yet here they are. He can feel the other Timelord’s presence and, as his other senses make themselves felt over his throbbing head and aching joints, he can hear him too. Pacing and ranting – not loud, but with a great deal of feeling.

‘Are you alright?’ He asks, sitting up cautiously. The Master doesn’t even break stride.

‘How dare they.. how, how dare they?’ 

He tries again. ‘Are you alright?’

‘What? Yes, fine. So are you.’ 

‘Oh good. That’s good to know.’ The Doctor has to use a shelving unit to bolster himself against, dragging himself all the way up to his feet. ‘Because I don’t feel fine.’

The Master turns sharply, his head on one side, considering. He’s younger again, clean shaven this time. About the same height. He grins and takes a step towards the Doctor, stopping a few feet in front of him, just out of arms reach. Holds out his hands as though coaxing a toddler to take his first steps. 

‘Come on, you can do it.’ 

‘You’re insufferable.’ 

‘You are adorable.’ The Master closes the gap without warning, crowds him against the back of the shelf. ‘Hello again Doctor.’

The Doctor swallows, eyes widening. There is something animal, muscled and tightly coiled about this new Master. His eyes amber splashed with darker colour, like twin suns in supernova, and the grin he meets the Doctor with has something of the concealed blade about it.

‘Hello.’ He says cautiously. ‘Master.’


End file.
